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20 Nov 22:05

Alex Trebek Reads Bizarre Jeopardy Clues in Conan Show Segment “Alex Trebek Has Gone Insane”

by EDW Lynch

Jeopardy host Alex Trebek reads bizarre absurdist Jeopardy clues in Volume 9 of the recurring Conan show segment, “Alex Trebek Has Gone Insane.”

20 Nov 22:04

Report: Employers Created 40,000 New Jobs For Existing Employees Last Month

WASHINGTON—In a promising development for the nation’s workforce, a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Labor shows that employers created approximately 40,000 new jobs
    






20 Nov 21:54

Sophia Stewart wins the Matrix copyright infringement case - CNN iReport

by hodad

Sophia Stewart’s released a press statement which said: ‘The Matrix & Terminator movie franchises have made world history and have ultimately changed the way people view movies and how Hollywood does business, yet the real truth about the creator and creation of these films continue to elude the masses because the hidden secret of the matter is that these films were created and written by a Black woman…a Black woman named Sophia Stewart. But Hollywood does not want you to know this fact simply because it would change history. Also it would encourage our Black children to realize a dream and that is…nothing is impossible for them to achieve!’

Original Source

20 Nov 21:52

Sexual Harassment in Comics: Next Steps

Sexual Harassment in Comics: Next Steps:

laurahudson:

As the chorus of women speaking out about sexual harassment in comics grows louder and louder, one of the most frequent – and heartening – responses I’ve heard from men is that they’re concerned about this issue and want to do more, but don’t know exactly where to start.

Rachel Edidin and I…

20 Nov 21:51

nerdoftheday: Why is this so amazing?



nerdoftheday:

Why is this so amazing?

20 Nov 21:51

shitroughdrafts: A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens....



shitroughdrafts:

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens. 1859.

Heh.  :)

20 Nov 21:50

Vint Cerf Thinks Privacy May Be an Anomaly

by Soulskill
firehose

'[There's a] need to develop social conventions that are more respectful of people's privacy.' ... "Cerf currently works at Google as chief Internet evangelist"

Nerval's Lobster writes "Vint Cerf, widely considered one of the 'founders of the Internet,' told an audience at the Federal Trade Commission's Internet of Things workshop that privacy could be considered 'an anomaly.' That workshop, held Nov. 19 in Washington, DC, explored (via speeches and panel discussions) how the proliferation of sensors on everything from cars to household devices is fundamentally changing how people live and work—while raising questions of how to best maintain privacy and security in an environment where more and more things are 'watchers.' 'The technology that we use today has far outraced our social intuition, our headlights,' he added. '[There's a] need to develop social conventions that are more respectful of people's privacy.' Current social behaviors, such as instantly posting images from smartphones to social networks, can result in a whole lot of embarrassment—and maybe even penalties, if data and media happens to catch someone in the act of doing something illegal. Cerf currently works at Google as chief Internet evangelist, which would make him uniquely positioned to comment on these sorts of issues even if he hadn't co-created the TCP/IP backbone that supports the modern Web. (Back in April, he told an audience that, if he had to do it all over again, he'd construct the Internet in the mold of Software-Defined Networking — but that's a whole different, tangled discussion.)"

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20 Nov 21:46

Unleashed: Menswear Dog Ever wonder what goes on...

firehose

MWD PUPPY SHOTS OMG



Unleashed: Menswear Dog

Ever wonder what goes on behind-the-scenes at MWD? Our friends at Blue Chalk Media help shine some light with Unleashed, a new digital video series that chronicles stories about people and their special relationship with pets.

Special Thanks to Catherine Yrisarri, Rob Finch, and Greg Moyer for being the nicest people on planet earth.

20 Nov 21:43

Photo

firehose

via Albener Pessoa



20 Nov 21:41

Flatulence humor

Rhyming phrases:

  • He/She who declared it blared it.
  • He/She who observed it served it.
  • He/She who detected it ejected it.
  • He/She who said the rhyme did the crime.
  • Whoever spoke last set off the blast.
  • Whoever smelt it dealt it.
  • Whoever denied it supplied it.
  • The next person who speaks is the person who reeks.[13]
  • The smeller’s the feller.
  • He/She who inculpated promulgated.
  • The one who said the verse just made the atmosphere worse.
  • Whoever’s poking fun is the smoking gun
  • He/She who accuses blew the fuses.
  • He/She who refuted it tooted it.
  • He/She who pointed the finger pulled the finger.
  • He/She who articulated it particulated it.
  • He/She who deduced it produced it.
  • He/She who was a smart-ass has a fart-ass
  • She who sniffed it biffed it.
  • The slanderer made the gland error.
  • He/She who eulogized it aerosolized it.
  • Whoever makes the joke makes the ass smoke.
  • He/She who rapped it cracked it.
  • Whoever rebuts it cuts it.
  • Whoever spoke it broke it.
  • Whoever asked gassed.
  • Whoever started farted.
  • Whoever explained it ordained it.
  • Whoever described it applied it.
  • Whoever thunk it stunk it.
  • Whoever resented it, presented it.
  • Whoever accused it, diffused it.
  • Whoever spoke the words is baking the turds.
  • He/She who spoke it broke it.

Link

20 Nov 21:41

Tag Someone who loves Cats

firehose

via Osiasjota



Tag Someone who loves Cats

20 Nov 21:35

Marvel Earth-28384

by gguillotte
firehose

the art and craft of Marvel's worldbuilding is forever astonishing

This reality was an alternate Earth in which real life physics applied to the Hulk's pants.
20 Nov 21:33

New Gravity short shows the other end of Sandra Bullock's radio call

by Meredith Woerner

New Gravity short shows the other end of Sandra Bullock's radio call

Created by Jonas Cuarón, Gravity's co-writer, this short film titled Aningaaq reveals who was on the other end of Sandra Bullock's desperate call down to Earth. It's pretty amazing.

Read more...


    






20 Nov 21:29

New backdoor worm found attacking websites running Apache Tomcat

by Dan Goodin
Diagram showing how Tomdep receives commands and spreads to new machines.

Researchers have identified new self-replicating malware that infects computers running the Apache Tomcat Web server with a backdoor that can be used to attack other machines.

Java.Tomdep, as the backdoor worm has been dubbed, is Java Servlet-based code that gives Apache Tomcat platforms malicious capabilities. It causes infected machines to maintain Internet relay chat (IRC) communications with attacker servers located in Taiwan and Luxembourg. The control servers send commands and receive progress reports to and from the infected machines. Affected platforms include Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, and most supported versions of Windows.

In a blog post published Wednesday, Takashi Katsuki, a researcher at security firm Symantec, said Java.Tomdep appears to be designed to harness the huge amounts of bandwidth and computing power available to Web servers for use in denial-of-service attacks against other machines. Unlike Darkleech and other malware targeting Web servers, there's no indication that it's used to attack end users visiting websites. Katsuki explained:

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20 Nov 21:29

After 15 years of llama-whipping, AOL shuts down Winamp for good

by Cyrus Farivar
The Dulles-based Winamp team, as of 2012.
AOL

Winamp, the storied MP3 player bought by AOL in June 1999 for over $80 million, is set to shut down in exactly one month. According to a post that went live Wednesday at 12:00pm ET on the Winamp website:

Winamp.com and associated Web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release. Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.

On Wednesday, Ars confirmed the announcement with Geno Yoham, Winamp’s general director since October 2008. He declined immediate comment but said that he would try to arrange a future interview.

Ars wrote an extensive feature on the rise and fall of Winamp in June 2012, detailing AOL’s mismanagement of the property since its dotcom-boom acquisition. As we reported then, Winamp continued to receive updates and make a tiny amount of money for AOL throughout the last 15 years. AOL even released the first Android version in 2010 and a Mac version in 2011.

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20 Nov 21:29

Photo



20 Nov 20:35

Lorde’s hit song ‘Royals’ inspired by Kansas City baseball team — really | Big League Stew - Yahoo Sports

by gguillotte
“I had this image from the National Geographic of this dude just signing baseballs,” Lorde told us when we sat down with her recently. “He was a baseball player and his shirt said, ‘Royals.’ " Lorde was so taken by the image and the word that she penned the song around that idea. "It was just that word. It’s really cool."
20 Nov 20:35

Kim Kardashian And Kanye West Eat At Wendy's, And Yes, There's Photographic Evidence

by gguillotte
"Kim & Kanye just chilling @ Wendy's on 15th and Chestnut last night," Instagram user boogasuga wrote
20 Nov 20:33

DoctorBeet's Blog: LG Smart TVs logging USB filenames and viewing info to LG servers

by djempirical


After some investigation, I found a rather creepy corporate video advertising their data collection practices to potential advertisers. It's quite long but a sample of their claims are as follows:
LG Smart Ad analyses users favourite programs, online behaviour, search keywords and other information to offer relevant ads to target audiences. For example, LG Smart Ad can feature sharp suits to men, or alluring cosmetics and fragrances to women.
Furthermore, LG Smart Ad offers useful and various advertising performance reports. That live broadcasting ads cannot. To accurately identify actual advertising effectiveness.
In fact, there is an option in the system settings called "Collection of watching info:" which is set ON by default.  This setting requires the user to scroll down to see it and, unlike most other settings, contains no "balloon help" to describe what it does.


At this point, I decided to do some traffic analysis to see what was being sent.  It turns out that viewing information appears to be being sent regardless of whether this option is set to On or Off.


Here you can clearly see that a unique device ID is transmitted, along with the Channel name "BBC NEWS" and a unique device ID.
Here is another example of a viewing info packet.
GB.smartshare.lgtvsdp.com POST /ibs/v2.2/service/watchInformation.xml HTTP/1.1
Host: GB.ibis.lgappstv.com
Accept: */*
X-Device-Product:NETCAST 4.0
X-Device-Platform:NC4M
X-Device-Model:HE_DTV_NC4M_AFAAABAA
X-Device-Netcast-Platform-Version:0004.0002.0000
X-Device-Country:GB
X-Device-Country-Group:EU
X-Device-ID:2yxQ5kEhf45fjUD35G+E/xdq7xxWE2ghu0j4an9kbGoNcyWaSsoLgyk8JJoMtjRrYRsVS6mHKy/Zdd6nZp+Y+gK6DVqnbQeDqr16YgacdzKU80sCKwOAi1TwIQov/SlB
X-Authentication:YMu3V1dv8m8JD0ghrsmEToxONDI= cookie:JSESSIONID=3BB87277C55EED9489B6E6B2DEA7C9FD.node_sdpibis10; Path=/
Content-Length: 460
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
&chan_name=BBC TWO&device_src_idx=1&dtv_standard_type=2
&broadcast_type=2&device_platform_name=NETCAST 4.0_mtk5398&chan_code=251533454-72E0D0FB0A8A4C70E4E2D829523CA235&external_input_name=Antenna&chan_phy_no=&atsc_chan_maj_no=&atsc_chan_min_no=&chan_src_idx=1&chan_phy_no=&atsc_chan_maj_no=&atsc_chan_min_no=&chan_phy_no=47&atsc_chan_maj_no=2&atsc_chan_min_no=2&chan_src_idx=1&dvb_chan_nw_id=9018&dvb_chan_transf_id=4170&dvb_chan_svc_id=4287&watch_dvc_logging=0
This information appears to be sent back unencrypted and in the clear to LG every time you change channel, even if you have gone to the trouble of changing the setting above to switch collection of viewing information off.

It was at this point, I made an even more disturbing find within the packet data dumps.  I noticed filenames were being posted to LG's servers and that these filenames were ones stored on my external USB hard drive.  To demonstrate this, I created a mock avi file and copied it to a USB stick.


This file didn't really contain "midget porn" at all, I renamed it to make sure it had a unique filename that I could spot easily in the data and one that was unlikely to come from a broadcast source.

And sure enough, there is was...


Sometimes the names of the contents of an entire folder was posted, other times nothing was sent.  I couldn't determine what rules controlled this.

I think it's important to point out that the URL that the data is being POSTed to doesn't in fact exist, you can see this from the HTTP 404 response in the next response from LG's server after the ACK.

However, despite being missing at the moment, this collection URL could be implemented by LG on their server tomorrow, enabling them to start transparently collecting detailed information on what media files you have stored.

It would easily be possible to infer the presence of adult content or files that had been downloaded from file sharing sites. My wife was shocked to see our children's names being transmitted in the name of a Christmas video file that we had watched from USB.

So what does LG have to say about this?  I approached them and asked them to comment on data collection, profiling of their customers, collection of usage information and mandatory embedded advertising on products that their customers had paid for.  Their response to this was as follows:
Good Morning

Thank you for your e-mail.

Further to our previous email to yourself, we have escalated the issues you reported to LG's UK Head Office.

The advice we have been given is that unfortunately as you accepted the Terms and Conditions on your TV, your concerns would be best directed to the retailer.  We understand you feel you should have been made aware of these T's and C's at the point of sale, and for obvious reasons LG are unable to pass comment on their actions.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind Regards

Tom
LG Electronics UK Helpdesk
Tel: 0844 847 5454
Fax: 01480 274 000
Email: cic.uk@lge.com
UK: [premium rate number removed] Ireland: 0818 27 6954
Mon-Fri 9am to 8pm Sat 9am-6pm
Sunday 11am - 5pm
I haven't asked them about leaking of USB filenames due to the "deal with it" nature of the above response but I have no real expectation that their response would be any different.

So how can we prevent this from happening?  I haven't read the T&Cs but one thing I am sure about is that I own my router and have absolute jurisdiction of any traffic that I allow to pass, so I have compiled an initial list of internet domains that you can block to stop spying and advertising on TVs that we, as customers have actually paid for.
  • ad.lgappstv.com
  • yumenetworks.com
  • smartclip.net
  • smartclip.com
  • llnwd.net
  • smartshare.lgtvsdp.com
  • ibis.lgappstv.com
This will free you from seeing ads plastered on your screen and having your viewing habits monitored, whilst it should still allow firmware updates to be applied.

Original Source

20 Nov 20:31

Cat tries to say something - YouTube

by djempirical
20 Nov 20:27

Video game developer Kixeye opens Portland office, boosting Oregon’s gaming ambitions | OregonLive.com

by gguillotte
firehose

They're hiring, and they're obnoxious. Did not and would not apply. cf. http://corp.kixeye.com/#/en/support for a minor example.

High-octane San Francisco video game developer Kixeye has opened an outpost in downtown Portland, staffing it with 15 customer support people and leaving room for expansion.
20 Nov 20:23

It's Not Racism If You're Willing to Pull Your Gun on White Women, Too

by Paul Constant

George Zimmerman is out on bond, though he does have to wear a GPS ankle bracelet. In other Zimmerman news, Breitbart editor-in-chief Ben Shaprio dropped some Twitter-knowledge on us all:

BTW, leftists, if Zimmerman pulled a gun on his gf (for which he should go to jail), that hurts your argument that Trayvon was race-based.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 19, 2013

Conservative logic! I feel like this tweet should've ended with Shapiro extending his arms and wiggling his fingers while shouting "Ta-daaaaaaah!"

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

20 Nov 19:37

This 'Daily Show' Segment On Rob Ford Is Everything You'd Hope It Would Be

Rob Ford, the crack-smoking mayor of Toronto, has done it again.
20 Nov 19:37

How To Fix The Ugly iPad Wallpaper Apple Messed Up

Apple’s latest operating system, iOS 7, is frustrating a lot of people who just want to set their lock screen to their favorite wallpaper.
20 Nov 19:35

Vermont Eugenics

by hodad

Between 1973 and 1976, approximately 3400 Abenaki women were sterilized in the United States, including those sterilized in Vermont; full informed consent was not obtained (Dowbiggin, p. 181).

Original Source

20 Nov 19:34

Vertebrates


patrickgries.com


patrickgries.com


patrickgries.com


patrickgries.com

Vertebrates

20 Nov 19:34

Soon

20 Nov 19:34

American Voices: Study: Video Games Don’t Negatively Impact Kids’ Behavior

firehose

“I’ll be sure to tell my little Headshot339.”

Contrary to popular perceptions that playing video games causes psychological and emotional problems in children, a study of 5-year-olds in the United Kingdom found no correlation between electronic gaming and behavioral issues.
    






20 Nov 19:26

Muppets Most Wanted trailer is just so damn charming

by Meredith Woerner
firehose

starring Danny Trejo as Fozzie Bear

Muppets Most Wanted trailer is just so damn charming

Get ready to be smacked about with childlike wonder. It's the new trailer for Muppets Most Wanted — filled with amazing actors like Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais and Ty Burell. Ok you win, Muppets. This looks really, really cute.

Read more...


    






20 Nov 19:19

Google launches Play Newsstand: A hybrid magazine store and RSS reader

by Ron Amadeo
firehose

aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The long-rumored Google Play Newsstand for Android has finally launched, and it's not at all what we were expecting. Early reporting and investigation pinned it as a newspaper section of the Play Store, but it's much more than that. Google is selling newspapers and magazines under a single banner, and there's a visual-heavy RSS reader, sort of like Flipboard. This means Newsstand is replacing two of Google's existing apps: Google Play Magazines and Google Currents. Google is pitching Newsstand as "all your subscriptions in one place."

Like most things "Google" these days, calling Newsstand an "app" isn't really the whole story. There's also a new section of the desktop Play Store, and some magazines and newspapers are even viewable in the browser. RSS is strictly confined to the app, though.

Just like the old Play Magazines, paid content is available as a subscription or on a per-issue basis, and 30-day trials are available for some premium content. RSS feeds, magazines, and newspaper can be downloaded for offline reading later, and there's also a bookmark function.

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